stepped forward to help him. There had been none by to lend a helping hand when Abel Kirke stumbled and fell.

They raised him tenderly, the men who had been sitting with stones in their hands. They laid him tenderly on a bed at the nearest inn.

They had been loud in speech some of them, and hard in thought, and ready in harsh suggestion. There was no speech at all now, suggestive or other; and the thoughts were such as need hardly be put into words here.

Yet the silence seemed only for a moment. The doctor came, gave a momentary glance, asked a question or two, and went away. There would have to be inquiry on the morrow. But there was something that must be done that night, one scared-looking man said to another, as they went out into the

busy street.

Some one must go over to Cleveden. The old man had a daughter, who was doubtless even then expecting him.

Mr.

So it came to Jenny,-the knowledge that she was fatherless; sudden, unexpected as the vivid lightning flash. Rachel was with her, -she had been there since about an hour after Abel's departure; but no support was required at her hands in that first terrible moment, save the mere support of her presence. Verdon spoke long, and kindly, and wearyingly; Brother Page echoed a word now and again. Jenny stood by the table, clutching the edge of it with one nervous hand, trying to listen, trying to realize; wishing only that they would go away. Then, without perceiving it, she ceased from wishing or trying. The lamp went out, the fire dwindled to a

speck, the wearying voice sank to an inaudible

murmur.

She was alone with Rachel when consciousness came back. There was a moment of blindness and effort and confusion; then full sight and knowledge. She was lying there on the little hard sofa that was all studded with brass nails; Rachel was holding her hand and looking at her sorrowfully.

And there was no one else but Rachel now,in all the wide world none save this chancemet friend.

Till a late hour in the night she lay there. Anthony came up for Rachel, received the sad news at the door, and went away alone. Rachel stood for a moment watching him as he went through the yard, listening to his footstep as he went down the street. The bare boughs of the laburnum tree waved a

little sadly over the wall; the silence of the starlit sky seemed to have an ache in it.

Then she drew the heavy bolts and bars and went back to the sofa. Jenny gave a smile of thankfulness. She was taking her sorrow very quietly, but Rachel knew what such quietness meant. She, Rachel Rede, had known and seen sorrow in many phases; there had been times for her when every morsel of bread broken and eaten had been a sacrament of sorrow. They were past, but they had left more than memories behind them. She had attained by apprehension of the

them to a tremulous

sufferings of others. Even suffering that she could not touch nor reach nor alleviate in any way had power to reach and touch herself. But this new grief of Jenny's was not of this kind. It was one of Rachel's older griefs, but

she had not forgotten it. She could never forget. Talking with Jenny, living through these hours with her, made her own double loss seem but yesterday. And her words. came from a heart attuned to no lower philosophy, stoical or other. It never occurred to her that it would be better to go at once to the root of the matter, she simply went. There was no thought of teaching.

If she might comfort a little, strengthen a little; that was all her aim.

It was an easier matter than she had thought. She imagined that it was the sudden and overwhelming blow that had awakened Jenny to a new receptiveness; but the awakening had been begun before. There had been preparation for the terrible stroke, so that it might fall less heavily. Only two or three hours had passed, but to Jenny the